Phebe's Spicy Pumpkin Pie

Filling:
1 small sugar pumpkin, roasted and peeled, or about 2 cups canned pumpkin
1 12 oz package firm silken tofu
2 tbsp molasses
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup loosely packed brown sugar
1 tbsp corn or tapioca starch
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
3/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp mace
1/2 tsp garum masala

1/2 vodka crust recipe or store bought pie shell

The day before (if you're using fresh pumpkin and home-made crust):
Roast the pumpkin by cutting it in half, scooping the seeds and strings out, inverting each half on a cookie sheet, and baking at 400 degrees for about 1 hour, or until you can pierce the pumpkin through its skin easily with a fork. Let the cooked pumpkin cool, and then peel the outer skin off (should be able to do this with your fingers). Store cooked peeled pumpkin in fridge overnight.

Make the crust recipe. Store wrapped in plastic or in an air tight container in the fridge overnight.

Morning of your dinner:

Put your pumpkin and the tofu, drained, in a large bowl. Mash with a potato masher. When it's broken down into small lumps, add the other ingredients. You can modify your spices to taste. Use a hand blender to mix the filling together. Keep scraping down the sides of the bowl and keep blending until there are NO lumps of tofu. It should be completely consistent and creamy in texture when you're done. Tofu lumps in pie are fairly nasty.

Preheat your oven to 375 F.

Take your pastry out of the fridge. Roll out your crust, and lay it in pan. Trim to fit. Pour filling into raw crust (can be frozen, if that's what you're using). Bake for about an hour, until the top of the pumpkin filling is set (looks dry on top). The filling will probably also have some cracks through it, and the crust should be golden.

The filling will not be completely set until the pie is cool. That's why it's best to do it in the morning, and let it cool for the rest of the day. You can refrigerate it, but if you put it in the fridge while it's still too warm, condensation will make the crust soggy.

I serve this pie with the tofu whipped cream from Dairy Free and Delicious.

Vodka Apple Pie

 

I haven't liked many of the pie crust recipes I've tried. For years I made an oil-based crust because I couldn't get any non-hydrogenated shortening where I lived. It tasted good, but it wasn't as flaky as pastry made with solid fat, and it tended to fall apart when it was being rolled out. When I made this apple pie for Easter (yes, this post, like most, is terribly belated) I decided to try to find a flaky pie crust recipe. I ended up using this one because the science behind putting alcohol in the crust seemed sound to me.

And I have to say, I was the richest, flakiest crust I've had. The recipe made way too much dough for my pie pan, though, so I ended up using the rest to make turnovers filled with leftover apple chickpea curry (yum!) and some filled with strawberry rhubarb jam. So good.

Filling is mixed apples, cinnamon, ginger cloves, garum masala (my mum's secret ingredient in pie) a a tablespoons or two of flour and raw cane sugar.